Raised From The Dead!

August 1, 2016

Dear Friends,

One of my dear friends is Fr. Jim Curtin at St. Dennis Catholic Church in Lockport, IL. One of the families in his congregation was at the first healing conference I did at his church about 7-8 years ago. This is a strong family with five sons, all of whom I’ve met and interacted with at different times. I tell you this so you will know this story comes from a credible source and involves a family I have personally prayed with and interacted with on different occasions.

Connor, a sophomore in college was on a mission trip in Mozambique. He, along with some other young people, were praying with people in a village when one of the team yelled for him to come over to a hut where there was a dead 12-year-old boy. The grieving family told them the boy had been dead for five hours and was even wrapped up in graves clothes. Some of the villagers were trying to take him out but the father would not let them. Connor ran over there, went inside where the family was, dropped down on his knees with the ones that were already praying and began to pray. After a period of time, the boy started to move and he came back to life! Let me repeat that he was not merely unconscious but had been dead for 5 hours! I know this family and checked this out with Connor’s mom who confirmed that this happened.

WILL YOU BE MY FRIEND?

I recently heard a message on relationships by my friend David Williams. He pointed out that because of technology the term “friend” doesn’t have the same meaning that it used to have and how it is evolving mainly due to the technology that we didn’t have ten years ago. He said that we have the power to do friendship on our own terms and gave examples of how addicted we’ve become to needing immediate affirmation from our friends.

As I thought about this I realized that on my Facebook account I have hundreds of “friends”. With these friends, I can text, Twitter, Snapchat, Skype, Instagram, etc. I can even “unfriend” them anytime I choose. I realized that indeed some of these people that are my friends I know very little about and with many of them I’ve never sat down and had a face-to-face conversation. So for me, this brings up two questions. The first being, “What does friend mean to you?” But even more important for me is, “What does it mean to be a friend of God”?

Believe it or not, I actually had friends before Facebook that were truly my friends, not just my Facebook friends. During the late 1960’s I was living up in the San Francisco Bay area. This was during the height of the hippie movement. I remember vividly walking down Haight street late one evening when a young man approached and handed me a piece of paper titled, “What is a Friend”? After a brief glance, I stuffed it in my pocket and forgot about it. Many years later while rifling through some paperwork I came across it, picked it up and read it. It was one of those “Aha!” moments for me. The entire piece is quoted on page 86 in my book, “Before You Get Here.” This piece defines for me clearly what it means to be a friend. The first couple of lines read, “What does it mean to be a friend? I will tell you. It is a person with whom you dare to be yourself!” That sums it all up for me. With those, I count to truly be my friends I can be open knowing they will never reject me or judge me. To me that is friendship and that’s the kind of friendship I feel like I have with God. I have nothing to hide from Him. He knows everything there is to know about me and He still loves me and watches over me.

Thank you for your prayers and donations that help keep this ministry going. The last couple of months have been tight but God is always there and each of you has been wonderfully faithful to us. Keep our needs before the throne of God.